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Golden Horde - Scourge From The East

I intend to write and play this AAR differently than usual. I will play from the perspective of a ruler of the empire at the time. This means I will try to make my decisions based on what I feel a real Khan of the Golden Horde would have chosen. Choices will be made to win but I will try to ignore knowledge of the game where applicable and there will be more focus on short terms gains rather than long term planning. Winning this game is not a goal rather to experience some of what went on in real life is more important.

1419 - Overview
Economy
Despite its vast size the Golden Horde is poor, very poor. The chief products of the land are grain and wool. Most provinces provide an income of only around 4 or 5 in taxes and production. Ufa is the one exception providing a steady gold income.
Military
It also starts underpowered relative to its size. Its armies total 27,000 all up. 25K of which are fortunately cavalry, vital for dominating the vast plains of the steppes.
Technology
Almost none to speak of all are at level 0 and in no hurry increase. To get to level one for each tech will cost around 500 ducats and at a reasonable level of funding will take about 2 years.

Neighbours
To the east are the other inhabitants of the steppes, the Uzbek. These pose little threat as they start rather weak also. To the south are the small Caucasian nations of Shirvan, Abkhazia and Georgia. Though relatively richer and more advanced than the Horde their small size limits their potential to cause harm, however were they to jump in on a Horde under siege by other nations they could cause problems. The west is the home of the Hordes biggest rivals. Lithuania who may set their eyes on more land or even upon Ufa's mines. Muscowy though poses the most threat as it looks not only at the hordes lands but a way through to the Siberian corridor.

To make matters worse the Horde starts at -3 stability as various nobles fight for the throne ending with Ulugh Muhammad in power at the start of the scenario.

This is obviously my first aar. I would welcome any comments particularly on the writing. I'm uncertain of what style to take at the moment. Though I will aim to write it in a style similar to Jwolf's since these are some of my favourite aar's.

Ulugh set about consolidating his power by investing heavily in stability. Vital if the country was not to tear itself apart.

Policy changes were then made shifting the militaries emphasis away from the navy to the land a fairly obvious choice given that the horde was an almost landlocked power.

Ulugh then had to wait whilst calm returned to his nation. As he surveyed the lands he became unhappy with the economic situation and decided to introduce a new tax on grain production. Despite the economic benefits this would bring the nation, nobles were unhappy and the stability dropped. One lord even took up arms in the province of Samara, but only managed to rob some of the surrounding area before fleeing before the hooves of the Khan's Guard.

On the western front Muscowy began to grow but not at the expense of Novrogod as advisors had predicted but instead it expanded it's colonies along their northern border with the horde. Although Muscowy still paid tribute to the horde it grew stronger and less willing to pay. Poland and Lithuania were occupied for the meantime with a war against the knights of the Livonian Order.

In August a comet was sighted that burned brightly for 3 whole months. People grew restless, was this a bad omen for Ulugh?

In the late days of December the omen was proved unfortunately true as Dawlat Berdi a longtime rival of Ulugh appeared in Volgograd with an army to challenge for the throne.

The fierce battle ended in a victory for Ulugh's forces but following the battle spies swung the loyalty of the army and Ulugh was forced to flee leaving the throne to Dawlat.

After only a year the Horde has a new ruler. Things have not improved much within the realm and Dawlat is a worse ruler than Ulugh. At least the Hordes neighbours have not turned on them yet and a domestic policy change has been completed.

Great idea to AAR with Golden Horde. I thinki would get pretty annoyed with all the disadvantages of the Horde, both obvious and with events... I see you are playing AGCEEP..be sure to not give Muscovy any provinces, in AGCEEP -version 1.38 IIRC - they only need to hold one or two of your provs and they will inherit you. That's right - more or less give territory to the Russians and die. Good luck

Having just completed a game as Lithuania in which I naturally ate up a great deal of the Horde, I'm very interested to read about it from the other side. Strangely, the gold mine was in Samara though, not Ufa. I will follow this, and I'd say the style is good - straightforward but interesting, so therefore extremely readable. But then, jwolf is one of my favourite writers too. Keep it coming!

SirCliveWolfe - Thanks for the support, I'm quite interested to see where it goes too

Grundius - The waiting could be one factor.... I Hope almoravid was right and players can't be inherited otherwise...

Farquharson - Thanks. The gold mine is in the province that says Ufa on the main map but in the province window its called Samara. I decided to go with calling it Ufa since thats the name you'll be able to read on the screenshots.

Rirre,Freddan ,Lurken - Thanks for the support, I'll do my best to keep it interesting.

almoravid - I really hope you're right about the events otherwise this could be a short aar.

jwolf - 1. Yip Ufa and Samara are switched but unfortunately the map itself hasn't been modded so it still reads Ufa on Samara. Since this is all you'll be able to read in screenshots I decided to go with calling Samara Ufa.
2. I don't know about that I'm not going to go in the files and read events or monarchs, I like to not know what I'm up against until it hits.
3. No CoT in Astrakhan But there is one in Kerch however that dissappears when Ottoman's take Constantinople.

As for the writing style this was probably not the best example since I was halfway through it when I hit the submit instead of preview and was forced to write it quicker than I would have liked.

My main goal is to try and make the decisions like a Khan might have and as such I think the territory to aim for is in the Caucasus and the Russian principalities.

The Suebian - Thanks I will need it, as for east or west, its probably going to be the west that I target first.

CatKnight - Good to have you along and thanks.

Norrefeldt - I hope this one will keep you interested

Stroph1 - I think it should be reasonably fun to play as long as I don't get disallusioned with losses. I'm sure the rebels are going to be more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

Dawlat came to power through violence and through violence he sought to continue his rule. This time though the violence would be directed at the Christians of the Black Sea.

This meant there were four potential targets, Theodoros, Abkhazia, Georgia and the Genoese owned Kerch.

Georgia was ruled out since it belonged to an alliance and had a standing army in mountain provinces not suited to the hordes mounted attack. Kerch too was passed over since it would fall easily but to take it permanently would likely mean an attack on the Genoese homeland, something beyond the Hordes capabilities. This left Theodoros and Abkhazia. Both one province minors they would fall quickly. When making the final decision though Abkhazia was selected because it lacked a standing army. Theodoros' army though small was in a mountainous region where it could hold off the Hordes cavalry for a long time.

Preparations were begun for war in early 1420. The biggest problem was stability, at -3 none would go to war in support of Dawlat. So all investments were directed to bribing nobles and leaders to the Khan's cause.

There was some resentment amongst the merchants about the Khan's tactics and some took up arms in Astrakhan. The revolt quickly put down, several of the merchants were 'persuaded' to 'voluntarily' give a handsome total of 225 ducats to the Khan's treasury. Some of this Dawlat invested in new cavalry. Dawlat kept all his army close to him in Volgograd save a few thousand in Siberia and Crimea to put down revolts quickly. He did so since he knew that the army could be a hotbed of discontent and felt safest with them under his direct control. Some of the money was also spent on attempting to convert Lugansk and Donetsk to the true faith. The rest the Khan wished to spend on civil improvements but the Horde had no knowledge of any so he ordered research to be conducted in this area once stability had improved.

Mid 1421 was a good time for the Horde. Stability improved, Lugansk converted much quicker and with less resistance than expected and local nobles in Alga decided to improve the defences of the region of their own accord and out of their own pocket.

In preparation for the coming wars in the Caucasus and Black Sea region Shivan was invited to the Hordes alliance with Sibir.

The 'Mighty' Shirvan

By late 1422 research into civil improvement was completed. Word was sent to the Khan that trade level 1 had been acquired and merchants could now be sent. The Khan cursed, this was not what he wanted, he wanted infrastructure. Cursing again Dawlat had several advisors suitably beheaded and directed spending to infrastructure which was done quickly lest Dawlat get angry again.

War also broke out at this time between Theodoros and Genoa. The Theodorans wanting Kerch for themselves. Dawlat hoped that they would succeed since Kerch with its valuable CoT would be easier to take from them than Genoa.

By late 1424 knowledge of tax collectors was acquired and the first was promoted in Ufa to take advantage of the gold. Dawlat also directed money to attempting to convert Tambow.

Dawlat now felt ready to gain Abkhazia so declared war despite the fact it had been an anticipated move for four years now some nobles grew uneasy and stability dropped.
Only a small army was needed to besiege Abhazia and the Hordes army was split up.

Abkhazia was besieged quickly and after a few skirmishes with new troops in both Abkhazian and Horde territory all that remained was for the capital to fall.

In the final month of 1424 Dawlat would regret stopping his policy of keeping his army together under his control as Baraq his general in charge of the troops left at home took the opportunity and seized power.

No wonder the Golden Horde disintegrated. The first Khan is not yet disposed or his disposer is about to be disposed himself! Once again a historical example of how lack of strong leadership can cause the greatest empires to fall. I hope you can prove history wrong. Good luck expanding in the Caucasus. Just be careful not to anger the Ottomans (until you're strong enough to face them, that is )